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Fox News erroneously reported the death of Rep. Bill Young (R-Fla.) on air on Thursday afternoon. The Congressman is gravely ill.

Fox wrongly reports Congressman dead

By HADAS GOLD

10/17/2013 02:37 PM EDT

Fox News incorrectly reported that Rep. Bill Young (R-Fla.) had passed away Thursday afternoon. A spokesperson for the congressman said Thursday that the congressman is "gravely ill" but still alive.

"Bill Young's condition turned for the worse over night and he is gravely ill. His doctors say his prognosis is guarded," the Young family said in a statement.

Gretchen Carlson reported Young's death as a Fox News Alert on air during her afternoon show and later issued a correction on air.

“Alright, I’m really sorry to report that earlier we did report that Congressman Bill Young had passed away. We are now told that is not the case and we of course sincerely apologize for that error," Carlson said. "Hopefully that won’t happen again”

MSNBC's Luke Russert tweeted and NBC's Frank Thorp retweeted that Young had died. Thorp quickly followed up with another tweet, apologizing to the Young family for retweeting Russert's report that Young had passed. Russert soon followed by tweeting out the Young family statement that the congressman is gravely ill.

Young, who is 82 and the longest serving House Republican, announced last week that he plans to retire.

Correction: An original version of this report stated that Fox News had not corrected the error on air. Carlson issued a correction at 2:23 p.m, approximately 12 minutes after the initial report.

Clarification: This post has been updated to clarify that Thorp re-tweeted a report about Rep. Young's death and did not report it himself. Thorp also works for NBC News, not MSNBC.